two prunes
sold for twice
their expected value
at spinks
the auctioneers
yesterday
they had been used
by the resistance
to smuggle maps
behind enemy lines
i had to read the article
several times
and am still not quite sure
how the prunes
managed their daring feat
but i enjoyed the story
too much war stuff
is jingoistic
offensive glorification
of the unutterably unspeakable
not enough
is about the simple heroism
of fruit
i am not being facetious here
(well, not entirely)
i think
we should remember
the important things
like fruit
the persistence of prunes
in times of danger
the honour of oranges
and the pacifism
of a peach
a soft
gentle
peach
peaches never go to war
only their wrinkled cousins
the perennial prunes
sixty years on
the persistent prunes
still survive
for spinks
to sell
to the highest bidder
a peach would have passed away
long ago
dropping its stone
to start a new life
i think
i'd sooner
be a peach
than a prune
in rhythm no vib but don't pull it out no open E sound use a bit of upper arm on slurs don't thwack left wrist away from fiddle retake thin out your bow strokes with great care tiny bows very neat
very neat?
I don't do very neat
I do great big splashy sounds and molto vib or none. none at all. I like to thwack. tiny bows? nope. this is mozart, not - not - not some uptight prissy prissy prissy - oh I don't know.
finished? can I go now? can I go home and play this without great fat sighs and excruciating expressions that mean nothing, full of false agony? why agony anyway? what's wrong with joy? what's wrong with smiling, even laughing? and I don't mean that smug all knowing smile that makes me want to slap you.
I hate
really hate
classical violinists
holier than thou my music is so 'meaningful' violinists
violinists who want to keep their music dead and kill you with stony looks if you look for life
violinists who won't let you dance to haydn
violinists who use shoulder rests so that the violin fuses their spine into stiffness
violinists who switch on their neat little vibrato at the start of the performance and switch it off again at the end, instead of taking every note and caressing it into life
violinists who daren't play an open E (else what would happen?)
violinists who keep hygrometers in their cases
yes, you heard me -
hygrometers.
but you know
I also hate folk fiddlers
who rejoice in having no technique
thinking that makes them more authentic
it doesn't
it just makes them shit
rock violinists
who think they're so cool just because they're lending their classical skills to a 'lesser' genre
they're not cool
they're sad
go home
violinists who are so up their own arses that they market themselves using just one name, where us mere mortals are stuck with at least two
thing is
if you play the violin like that
I dread to think what you're like in bed
not a lot of fun
so throw away your shoulder rest, drink Flying Herbert, loosen your bow, use scordatura tuning for a hoot, and try sleeping with non-musicians. you'll be amazed.
twenty years ago today
some person or persons unknown
took a piano up ben nevis
sat down
ate their sandwiches
then covered the piano with stones
because a piano is heavy
they were tired
and couldn't face carrying it
the last twenty metres or so to the summit
but
they didn't want any passing mountaineers
nicking it on the way down
they reached the top
opened a few cans of cider
celebrated
set the world to rights
then staggered back down the mountain
they forgot all about the piano
then last week,
someone found it
but couldn't play a celebratory tune
because the keyboard was missing
so they broke it up
and asked thirty passing hikers
to carry pieces down
i hope they re-assembled it
at the bottom
and found that the keyboard had magically re-appeared
and someone had an old fifty pence piece
to put in the slot
to make it play
the carpenter's greatest hits
then the thirty hikers
could sing along
and feel a real sense of achievement
could sing of rainy days and mondays
as clouds dropped lumps of water on them
even though it was only Wednesday
Catherine Edmunds is a violinist from England who has recently re-invented herself as a writer.